44 
THE TWO EACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
in cultivating the land, and it was made a kind of merry 
making, lightening their toil with song. 
When an Inca died a number of his favourite concubines 
and attendants were immolated on his tomb; four thousand 
are said to have been put to death forHuayna Capac, the last 
Inca, before the coming of the Spaniards. So with the 
Maori : when the Ariki or head chief died, his favourite 
wives strangled themselves and a number of slaves were 
put to death, to accompany their lord and wait upon him in 
the Reinga. When a favourite wife of a chief died some of 
her female slaves were killed to bear her company. This 
was an almost universal practice throughout Polynesia. 
On the death of an Inca his palaces were abandoned, his 
treasures, furniture, and apparel were suffered to remain as 
he left them, and his numerous mansions were closed up for 
ever. The new sovereign had to provide himself with every- 
thing new for his royal estate. The popular belief was, that 
the soul of the departed would return after a time to reani- 
mate his body on earth, and they wished that he should 
find everything to which he had been used in life left for 
him when he came back.* 
When a Maori chief died, everything in his house was 
left just as it was ; the door was fastened, and the house 
painted with red ochre, a sign that it was tapu for ever. 
Formerly the houses of the dead in some of the Pas were 
more numerous than those of the living. In some parts of 
New Zealand the chief was buried in his own house, and 
his widow spread her mat over the grave, and slept upon it, 
that the spirit of the deceased might feel it had lost none of 
its rights by death. To avoid the sacrifice of a good house 
which was generally used by all the chief's followers, when 
a chief seemed to be dangerously ill, it was customary to 
erect a small hut for him in some retired spot, ostensibly 
that he might not be annoyed with the noise of the Pa, but 
in reality to save the good house, as then when he died 
his hut only would be burnt, but when he was buried every- 
thing belonging to him was interred likewise. 
* Prescott's Peru, p. 30. 
